


Really, OF COURSE she's an activist

by CharleyMeshle



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Activist Michelle Jones, Awesome Michelle Jones, BAMF Michelle Jones, Gen, Minor Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, more Ned Peter MJ friendship centric, still at the beginnings of said friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:22:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25413883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharleyMeshle/pseuds/CharleyMeshle
Summary: Michelle smiled, her rucksack slung over the black BLM t-shirt. A week ago a boy shouted a racist slur down the school hallway. But before she could even respond, her Decathlon teammate and new-almost-quite friend Peter Parker was standing in front of the guy, shouting right back. Michelle turned, only to find Ned already standing beside Peter, glaring down at that asshole.Huh,she thought,maybe these nerds aren’t only engrossed in Star Wars.Or:Michelle has always been out there, kicking ass and protesting against everything she deemed unfair. So when she spies her new best friends being way less oblivious to problems than she thought they were, it is time for her to take them protesting.
Relationships: Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 13
Kudos: 83





	Really, OF COURSE she's an activist

**Author's Note:**

> Hey people! Great to have you here, thanks for giving my fic a try.
> 
> So, for starters:
> 
> The MJ/Peter/Ned friendship is just starting, Peter is already crushing on MJ, she has no clue, Ned is filipino. I don’t know if he really is, I just thought he was so I thought I should pack that into the author’s note in case I’m wrong. :)

Michelle didn’t speak much to her fellow students at Midtown High. Most of them were rich, ranging from quite rich to crazy rich. She herself attended the prestigious school for highly intelligent kids on a scholarship, just like Parker. And Michelle observed them enough to gather that she wanted nothing to do with any of them. Books were way more interesting.

But the times you could definitely count on Michelle Jones to talk up at were discussions about climate change. Feminism. Racism. Social injustice. Homophobia. Eyes blazing like a lioness she would slay the stupid classmate or teacher who dared be sexist, homophobic or racist, proclaimed the poorer population just didn’t try hard enough or that climate change was a hoax with the best arguments and examples literature had to offer. 

So it surprised no one at all when Michelle was huge on the front page of a local newspaper one day after a demonstration against the gentrification of a close by suburb, shouting and angrily holding up a sign. It sparked so many eyerolls and annoyed mutterings in the hallways. Of course Michelle Jones would be an activist. If anyone, it would be the weird, sassy, over the top girl who reduced John Ashton to tears after he said that gay couples shouldn’t be allowed to marry. Really, _of course_ that strangely aggressive girl would visit _a protest._

But Michelle didn’t mind. Because what the other students didn’t know was how used she was to such comments. How they only encouraged her. How long ago her first protest was.

Her mother had taken her to her first protest. It had been against animal testing in a lab just three buildings beside her kindergarten. And all though Mrs Jones had kept her daughter at the outskirts of the protest, six year old MJ had been fascinated by the colours of the signs and the sheer emotion pouring off these people angrily chanting in front of the lab.

“Mama, why are the people so angry?” Michelle had asked her mother, pulling at her skirt and looking up to her with wide brown eyes.

Ayah Jones had picked up her daughter and gazed at the crowds while smoothing the girl’s wild curls with her free hand, wondering how to explain injustice to her child. “Sometimes, love, people with lots of power make wrong decisions. And when they do that, we have to tell them that we don’t want them to. We have to remind them that we are here.”

And Michelle had kept to that philosophy. She had been eleven at her next protest, together with a friend in her primary school. She had found it very unfair that her friend Maria couldn’t join the class field trip because her family’s rent had been drastically heightened and they couldn’t afford the tickets anymore. Michelle had run home and demanded her father explain exactly why Maria’s home was so much more expensive now. Well, Michelle didn’t like it, So her mother dropped both of the girls off at a protest against gentrification of the neighbourhood.

From then on Michelle was unstoppable. She attended rallies for equal pay, discussed the importance of climate change with everyone who listened, swung flags at pride parade with glitter in her hair and stood with four other people in front of the mayor’s office to demand more female artists in the current art exhibit.

So really, when she was sixteen and a movement screaming **enough is enough** at racism and police brutality was on the streets, Ayah Jones wasn’t surprised when Michelle put on her Black Lives Matter t-shirt before school and announced it was time her new friends Peter and Ned got introduced to protesting, and to not expect her back before five. Her father had just asked her to stay safe.

Michelle just smiled as she took the metro to school, her rucksack slung over the black t-shirt. A week ago a boy had shouted a racist slur down the school hallway. But before she could even respond, her Decathlon teammate and new-almost-quite friend Peter Parker was standing in front of the guy, shouting right back. She had blinked twice in surprise, before opening her mouth and turning to Ned to ask if Peter was like this after classes. So far he had backed her up in open discussions, but never initiated a fight. Only to find Ned already standing beside Peter, glaring at the racist.

 _Huh,_ she thought, _maybe these nerds aren’t only engrossed in Star Wars._

So she had sat down at lunch with them (which still felt kinda new and weird, but they had accepted her rather quickly). Peter looked up at her and smiled. “Hey, MJ.” “Sup, Loser. Watcha talking about?” Ned turned eagerly to her. “Star Wars, Revenge of the Sith. What do you think, was Padme’s death unnecessary or not? Cause Peter thinks it doesn’t add up, but-“

“I’ve never watched War of Blazing Gas Balls. So I have no idea what you are talking about, loser number two.” Michelle interrupted him. She was not in the mood for another rant about Star Wars.

Well, it worked. The boys were staring at her in evident shock. Peter got over her mis-titling their favourite movie series first.

“Never? We got to change that! Ned and I watch one almost every weekend, you should join in!” Peter said excitedly. Suddenly Ned obviously elbowed him and it struck him what exactly he had implied, Peter turned red and looked intently down at his carrots, but didn’t take the offer back. Michelle stared. A movie night. She’d think about that later.

“What do you guys think about racism?” She asked instead. Michelle really wanted to know how deep her new-almost-quite friends thought into this. But the boys stared at her for ten seconds straight. Michelle winced. Maybe that was a bit abrupt. She really had to work on her small talk skills.

But suddenly Peter Parker was giving the most accurate description of racial profiling she had ever heard from a white person, animatingly waving his hands, Ned nodding along and throwing in his family’s own experiences as Filipinos in America. They went on about racism in movies and science, which lead them to racism against other ethnic minorities.

“-so yeah, I think all ethnic minorities face some level of discrimination.” Ned finished, Peter nodding along this time. Now it was Michelle’s turn to stare.

“How come I haven’t seen you idiots at a protest yet?” She asked incredulously. The boys exchanged uncomfortable glances.

“I- I don’t really have much time after school normally, I come back from my internship at around eight normally. Y-yeah.” Peter stuttered.

(Michelle would find out a few months later that it was Peter who came by the protests as the friendly neighbourhood spider. Spiderman usually swung through the crowds and helped lost kids find their parents, broke up skirmishes at the sides when people of different opinions crashed a little to hardly, and generally kept some peace from all sides.) “But I really would love to come to one.” He added, his earnest hazel eyes weirdly distracting to Michelle.

“I’ve visited one, but since Peter can never make it, I just kinda have no one to go with.” Ned put in, shrugging and turning back to his noodle dish. “Well, there’s one this Friday,” Michelle started awkwardly. This was what she had aimed (ok, _hoped)_ for since the start of the conversation, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“Maybe you guys want to join me?”

Peter’s eyes widened slightly over the table. “S- sure! What time?” He asked, already nodding his head. Ned seemed to be desperately holding in a laugh, or choking on his noodles, but also nodded in Michelle’s direction.

“We could just go after school.” Michelle suggested, eyes on her untouched meal. Why did she feel so self-conscious all of the sudden? “Sounds good!” She heard Ned say. She snapped her eyes back to Peter. “What about your internship?” “Oh, not this Friday. I’m fine.” He hastily agreed. He’s blushing this interesting shade of red again.

“Cool… I’ll meet you at the entrance then. Check it up with your aunt and parents, and don’t be late. You can bring signs.” With that, Michelle swept out of the cafeteria, leaving two slightly confused but grinning boys behind.

“Dude, this is it. We’re officially friends with MJ.”

“Yep, Ned. I think we are.”

“…So you can ask her out now.”

“No, Ned!”

* * *

It was Michelle’s best demonstration ever.

MJ has been to many demonstrations. Met a lot of people. Punched a neo-Nazi in the face once, that had been glorious. But standing in a massive crowd on the streets of New York, being swaddled against her two best friends , who were shouting alongside her as if they were just as affected by the crisis as herself?

The best.

It was huge, and it was loud, and it was angry. Peter held up a sign saying “The Avengers wouldn’t stand for this!” with a crudely sketched angry Ironman and Spiderman, aggressively waving it over his head right beside her own “We fight for justice!”. Ned was punching his fist in the air, chanting along with the loudest voice MJ ever had heard from the boy, although he struck Peter a few times with that fist by accident. But he seemed to recover quickly every time.

So when MJ walked home that evening, tucking her face mask away, so caught up in vehemently snuffing away all feelings she POSSIBLY could have felt as Peter clutched her to his side to avoid losing her in a sudden surge of people (afterwards he had turned a deep shade of scarlet and turned into an ~~endearing~~ weird stuttering mess) that she missed the streak of friendly neighbourhood spider shooting over her head, she could say with absolute certainty that she was absolutely taking the two dorks to her next rally against injustice again.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I hoped you liked that! Everything you leave here is appreciated, I absolutely love kudos, comments and criticism,
> 
> Ah, talking of that: Listen, I'm privileged and have never experienced racism or something similar. So if there is anything insulting, anything incorrect, please please let me know, and I'll correct it. Pinky promise.
> 
> Love you guys to bits!!  
> I mean it, I don't care how you look or who you are, you are fuckn worthy of the world. Plus, everyone looks gorgeous with confidence ;)


End file.
